On-Duty Nonfatal Injury that Lead to Work Absences Among Police Officers and Level of Perceived Stress

Abstract

Objective

We examined prevalence, frequency, duration, and recency of injury leave and the association of duty-related injury with perceived stress in U.S. police officers.

Methods

This cross-sectional study contained 422 active duty police officers from a mid-sized urban police department. For each participating officer, work history records were used to assess on-duty injuries that lead to work absences. Linear regression analyses were used for analyses.

Results

Most participants had experienced at least one injury (62%), and among those injured, 67% experienced more than one duty-related injury. The average number of injuries per officer was three (range 1 to 12). There was a significant linear trend in mean perceived stress across injury count even after adjusting for age, rank, and sex ( P = 0.025).

Conclusion

Findings suggest that work-related injury is common and repeated work-related injuries are psychologically distressing in U.S. police officers.